All the Feathers Fall
by White-Corner-Wall
Summary: Hell is collapsing in Lucifer's absence. Collapsing and bringing down whole worlds around it. Unknown to humans, Earth has become a refuge for supernatural beings. A young fae has been tasked with saving his race. An old cop given a second chance starts seeing impossible things. Lucifer is busy being, well, Lucifer. Chloe finds herself over her head. And somewhere, an evil stirs.
1. Chapter 1

Context: post season 2. The wings Lucifer burned on the beach in season 1 were fake. The supernatural are more powerful than the show suggests.

 _They followed the light and the shadow,_

 _and the light led them forward to light_

 _and the shadow led them to darkness_

–T. S. Eliot, Choruses from _The Rock_ , VII

Ω

One: The Man in the Bright Coat

 _Thistle faces danger. Chloe finds a dead body. Martin Capooche arrives in Los Angeles. Lucifer makes a choice._

Ω

By the time he reached the second alleyway, he realised he was being followed. A block earlier he had noticed a flash of darkness in the side mirror of a parked car, and now he saw it again–a dark shape sliding across the broken window of a store like a tentacle reaching out in the blackness of the ocean. It could be a coincidence, but he felt it in his bones, in the pricked up hairs on the back of his neck: something was following him.

He sniffed once, long and drawn in, like a swimmer before diving into the ocean. At first all he could smell was harsh metallic iron. This place was full of it; he could feel it in the air and under his feet, sapping his energy. He hawked up some phlegm and spat it on the ground. His nose would run for days now.

He sniffed again, sorting through the overpowering iron. He could smell the garbage in the alleyway ahead of him, the rain in the clouds that rolled above him. And beneath it all, something fouler–more of a feeling than a smell.

Dark. Rotting. Death.

Nothing good. How had they found him? Why were they hunting him?

He picked up his pace. It was night time, but he could see nearly as clearly as he could during the day–to him, the street was sepia-toned, like a light shade of oak wood. He hopped deftly over patches of refuse, and sidestepped light-poles and chained rusty bicycles.

To anyone watching, he seemed to skip lightly from foot to foot, barely touching the ground between steps as if he weighed barely more than the air. He wore old-style pants, soft leather, with supple boots that hugged his feet up to his knee. More noteworthy, he wore a deep purple coat over a simple low-cut V-neck top, which split in two at the small of his back and trailed down behind him. The coat billowed out behind him as he began to walk faster. To go any faster would require him to jog. He didn't want whatever was following him to know it had him cornered. This would have to do.

He felt the presence quicken too. It had grown less stealthy, and he could see it flashing in the corner of his peripherals. On the opposite side of the street a pair of garbage cans was knocked down, clattering against each other and spilling refuse out onto the street. He saw a flash of something dark, and then the culprit was gone.

Were there two of them? He might have been able to fight one. _Might_ have. But two? He didn't fancy his chances.

But he wasn't much of a fighter anyway. He grinned, teeth gleaming and pointed. This required a subtler touch.

He had an idea. He didn't know if it would work, he had never tried something so complex before, in a place like this. This jungle of concrete and iron, where you had to look for nature caged up in little ceramic boxes, or poking out between gaps in the pathways, where garbage and refuse was piled up in corners, or stacked neatly into metal cans and plastic containers. He hated this place–he had to be here...

But that didn't mean he had to like it.

He could see the mouth of an alleyway ahead of him, and took a deep breath. He could feel the polluted air coating his mouth, and struggled not to cough. Everything had to be perfect for this to work.

As he kept moving forward, he breathed gently into his hands like he was drying them. He moved his fingers and hands like he was shaping clay although to nearly anyone watching, they would appear empty. He moved along like this, half-running down the street, fingers dancing like he was playing the piano. When he reached the alleyway he had seen earlier, he whispered into his hands and then blew on them again.

He ducked down into the alleyway as the mist unfolded from his hands, grew in size and colour, until a lookalike was walking along ahead of him making it seem like he had never stopped. It looked like his own twin, right down to the crinkles in his pants and the purple coattails of the jacket. It was good work, he admitted to himself and allowed himself a brief smile. He might just make this turn out okay.

He crouched down on his haunches, and pressed his back against the alleyway wall, grimacing as his neck pressed against something slimy. He breathed out again. The magic settled over him like a silk cloak, making his face tingle, and his nose twitch. He watched his image move ahead of him past the alleyway until it was lost from view, hopefully drawing whoever, or whatever, was following him away with it.

Bait on a hook.

He held his breath.

Something foul moved across the mouth of the alleyway. He forced himself to stay still. It was larger than a wolf, nearly the size of a small car, but it padded lithely, muscles under its matted black fur coiling and moving like the cogs of a machine.

He could feel a cramp growing in his left foot, and he shifted slightly to bring the weight off it.

The creature turned to look directly at him. Its eyes were deep dark red, the colour of blood, and seemed to be filled with a fire that leapt and coiled and rushed within itself, as if angry it was trapped. Flies buzzed around the beast. Its teeth were visible as it lifted its lip: serrated, sharp, capable of tearing him in half.

He bit his tongue to stop himself from gasping. He felt sweat rolling down the back of his neck. He hadn't sweated for centuries. He froze, trusting in his glamour to keep him hidden. He didn't dare to breath.

The beast's nostrils flared, and it padded closer. He could see a mucus-like substance dripping down from its nose. Its whiskers twitched.

Its ears pricked up at something. If he strained hard too, he could only just hear it, a shrill noise so high, he could barely pick it up. And then the beast was gone in a flash of grey and black, leaving behind the rotten-egg smell of sulphur, a sense of relief, and a larger feeling of unease.

Things were worse than he thought. Someone, for some reason, had just tried to have him killed.

He counted a hundred breaths to make sure there wasn't a third beast waiting for him outside the alleyway. He flicked the magic off of him with his hand, like shaking off water, and uncoiled his body away from the alley wall. He rolled his neck back and forth to stretch out the kinks.

He brushed himself down, disdainfully inspecting the wet dirt (he hoped it was dirt, anyway) that clung to his knees and trailed down his left shoulder. He looked up. An old woman was looking at him from her window, across the street. He smiled at her and tipped his head.

Far away, he heard the whining noise, shrill, and angry–his pursuers had learned they'd been duped.

He needed a new place to stay–it wasn't safe to go back to where he had been before. An idea came to him, somewhere safe, and where a few of his questions might be answered, if he was lucky.

Then he grinned.

After all, what kind of fae didn't love a good party?

Ω

Ellen Holland was making tea for herself and her daughter when she glanced out the window. She couldn't afford to live in a very nice neighbourhood, so the windows were grated to deter break-ins, obstructing some her view of the street. She liked to bake, and look out the window while she was rolling pastry or when something was simmering away on the stove, or like now, when she was watching the kettle boil.

In the light of the white lamppost across the street, she saw the bricked side of the alleyway across from her house unfold from itself into the form of a tall, thin man. She blinked. The beads on her necklace clacked together as she pulled up her glasses hanging from her neck onto the bridge of her nose.

The man smiled at her, and tipped his head. He was wearing a strange coloured jacket (she preferred brown, beige, and black), but she smiled back anyway. Not enough of the young men were polite anymore. Some came through the street every few weeks or so, and threw rocks through her windows.

When she looked closer, the man was gone. She leaned closer to the window and looked left and right, but he wasn't there. It was as if he had vanished into the night air like mist.

"Mum, do you need any help with the tea?" her daughter called out.

Ellen blinked away anything she thought she saw. She hadn't been wearing her glasses anyway. It reminded her she was old. Her feet started aching again.

She reminded herself that she had to pay that electricity bill before the end of the month, and return Mrs Stevens' sewing machine.

"No, I'm right, dear," she called out into the living room, and bustled around her small kitchen, trying to remember where she had put the pot of sugar and the small plate of chocolate biscuits.

Later, after her daughter had left, while she had her feet up to stop them from aching, nursing a fresh cup of tea, she would hear the sound of breaking glass from the kitchen. She would shout at the blasted teens to stop, and shake out her hearing aid because of a persistent whining that seemed to pierce the back of her head. She would waddle out into the kitchen, and tut at the glass strewn across the floor. She would notice the grated bars on the window bent and twisted out of shape like pieces of driftwood. She would see the dark, shadow-like shape perched on the counter. Her bead necklace would clack as she raised her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose, and she would drop the tea cup in horror as the beast rushed at her.

But for now let her enjoy talking to her daughter about the orchids she keeps on her bedroom windowsill, and laugh about the stories her daughter reminds her of, when they were all younger, and her husband was still alive. When they all jumped in Lake Michigan on holiday, and drank tea in tiny cups, sitting cross-legged on their trampoline.

Let Ellen Holland sneak an extra chocolate biscuit into her mouth while she thinks her daughter isn't looking. Let her worry about nothing more than her electricity bill, and the returning of Mrs Stevens' sewing machine.

Let her remember the thin man in the bright coat she had seen outside her kitchen window, and tell herself she had imagined it all.

Ω

All he had wanted to do was to move to the city he had always dreamed of living in, and die quietly without fuss. He had already bought a small plot in a cemetery. His will was up to date. He had paid for the headstone, and the coffin.

Nothing else seemed to be going to plan.

"What do you mean, you haven't received my reservation?" he asked the small woman behind the reception counter.

"We haven't received your reservation," the woman said around her piece of gum.

"Yeah, I got that part. Can you check again? It's under Capooche. Martin Capooche. C-A-P…"

As he recited his name out to the receptionist he found himself glancing over her shoulder at the statue on the wall. It was a man holding the world in his outstretched palms. He assumed it was meant to be depicted as loving and caring. But there was some glint in the statue's eyes that he wasn't sure if the artist had intended to put there. It looked self-satisfied. Like it had just pulled a practical joke. Capooche felt his stomach twist.

"Pardon?" he said.

"I said, you're not in the system. We haven't received your reservation."

"I have the receipt on my phone," he said. He pulled out his phone. It was out of battery. "It's out of battery," he said.

The receptionist raised an eyebrow. "Sure it is," she seemed to say.

He showed her the dead screen. "Just let me charge it," he said. "Do you have a power point?"

"Yeah," she said, "there's one here."

Capooche went to hand his phone over, but stopped as he remembered something. "Wait I don't have a charger," he said. It was still sitting in the power point above his hospital bed. He cursed to himself. He'd known he'd forgotten something. "Can I borrow one?" he asked.

"Sorry," she said. "Android." She shook her phone at him. She didn't look sorry at all.

"Well is there another room you could book me into?" He could get his money back later. He was sure the payment had gone through.

The woman stared at him. She chewed her piece of gum. Capooche clenched his fists. Took a deep breath. Gritted his teeth into a semblance of a smile. "Please," he said.

"Let me check for you," she said flatly. She looked down at her computer screen, and tapped at the keyboard with her two pointer fingers. "Yep," she said.

"What are they?"

"Let me check for you," she said.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"We got a suite," she said.

"Nothing else?"

"Let me check for you." Capooche had a headache. "Nope."

"Okay then, thank you for your lovely help," he said, and walked away.

"You don't want the suite?" The receptionist called out after him.

"No, I do not want the fucking suite," he muttered under his breath.

As he limped out the sliding doors of the hotel, trading smooth white marble floors with gum-spotted dirty pavement, he admitted that maybe he hadn't thought the move through. He hadn't even gone back to his apartment to pack. Just signed the discharge papers, threw out the shiny medal the police had traded him for his job, thanked his nurse, and booked his flight to L.A. and a week in a hotel to give him time to find somewhere more permanent. No, he'd _thought_ he'd booked himself into a hotel.

So maybe he'd rushed it. But without the police work he just hadn't had anything left to stay for. He didn't want to rattle around his too-large apartment, sleeping alone in his too-large bed until he died. He looked around at the L.A. street. He was glad he had moved here, he told himself. A man brushed past him, making him stagger. Glad.

He limped his way up the street to the traffic lights. Taxis honked. People walked past wearing too much and too little He looked behind him at the hotel name proudly lit up on the top of the building in red. He flipped it the finger.

All he had were the clothes on his back, and the money left in his bank account. And the cane too, he supposed.

He looked down at it clutched with his left hand. He hated the damn thing. He'd refused to use it until Alice, the nice nurse whose eyes always seemed to be laughing, had put her hands on her hips, declared him as be being childish, and told him stop wasting all of their time and use the damned cane.

He lifted the cane off the ground, and tentatively stepped forward with his left foot, and shifted his weight forward. His leg buckled, he fell to the pavement. The cane clattered to the ground out of reach. Why had he thought he could do that?

He tried to lift himself up, but he couldn't. He rolled over onto his back and looked up at the sky. The stars were hidden by pollution. The streetlights shone in his face like shiny pennies. People brushed past him, like water flowing around a rock in a river.

"Sir, are you okay?" a police officer was standing over him. Shoes bright and shiny. Burnished bronze badge proudly displayed on her hip.

He didn't have the heart to answer at first.

She pressed his cane into his hand, and helped him lever himself to his feet.

"Sorry," he said. He smiled wryly at her. "Just a foolish old man."

"No worries," she said. "You keep yourself safe." She walked away, radio crackling like electricity.

"Just a foolish old man," he repeated quietly to himself.

Someone else jostled him from behind.

He needed a drink.

Ω

By the time she arrived at the crime scene, forensics were already finishing up. The house was cordoned off with tape. Two police cars had their lights flashing. A small group of nosy teens stood as close as they could get, a police officer with his hands on hips standing in front of them. The teens were laughing, one of the ones at the back was jumping up and down, trying to see the crime scene.

Further away, another policeman stood with a crying woman wrapped in a foil blanket. Another policeman stood at the scene. He was the one she walked up to.

"Talk to me," Chloe said. The policeman had close cropped hair, which he ran his hands over nervously, his hat tucked under his arm. He had large, bushy eyebrows, and a large nose.

"Jesus…" he trailed off. "I've never seen anything like it –"

Chloe put her hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at her. His eyes flicked away and down. "Just the facts," she said gently.

The policeman raised himself up, took a deep breath. "Body has been identified by the daughter as Ellen Holland, 85, retiree. The daughter left the scene around 10pm after having dinner and tea with her mother, came back when she realised she'd left her phone behind, and found the body. That was around 10:30. We got here at 10:37 to lock down the scene."

"Any other witnesses?" Chloe asked. "Neighbours that saw anything?"

The policeman shook his head. "You'll have to do a full canvas later."

Chloe thanked him as one of the forensics brought her a white suit to avoid contaminating the scene. Chloe recognised her as Julie, they'd worked together before.

"Jesus, Decker," Julie said, as Chloe stepped into the suit. "It's bad."

"How bad?" she asked.

"You have to see it to believe it." Julie shook her head. "I haven't seen anything like this before. Ever." Chloe frowned, Julie had worked as a forensic for over 20 years. She'd seen some shit. If she was shaken… "It barely looks human," Julie said, while she checked over the back of Chloe's suit to make sure it had been done up correctly.

"I've seen some killers before who have barely been human."

"Not the killer. The vic. The body…" Julie trailed off, and Chloe stood there awkwardly shuffling from foot to foot.

"Thanks for the heads up," she said eventually. "Is there anyone left inside?"

"Ella's just finishing up. We haven't found much, no fingerprints, no fur –"

"Fur?" Chloe frowned. "What does fur have to do with a murder?"

Julie sighed. "Ella can fill you in. I'm heading home for a glass of wine. Or maybe a bottle."

Chloe entered the house with trepidation. The first thing she noticed when she stepped inside was the smell of blood, copper and metallic, that coated the back of her throat. The front door wasn't tampered with as far as she could tell. So the killer had either had a key, managed to pick the lock, or had entered through another way.

The entrance way was covered with floral wallpaper. There was a small cabinet next to the door against the wall with an old black and white photograph on it. It was a picture of a man, woman and their child. The couple were smiling but the child was squinting as if they were looking into the sun.

Chloe stepped through into the lounge room. It was small, but looked comfortable, with a leather couch taking up most of the room. The couch looked deep, like you could sit in it and sink all the way to the floor. There was a small plate of biscuits on the table in front of the couch. One was sitting askew, a large bite taken out of it. A few crumbs were scattered on the table.

Chloe looked through the open door on the right and saw the body. If you could even call it that anymore. Her stomach rose up, and Chloe swallowed it back down. The body had been ripped apart. Blood splattered the entire kitchen. The forensics team had started putting down little markers for each patch of blood, but Chloe could see that they'd given up after the first dozen or so.

A wrinkled hand, with bracelets on it was lying in the kitchen sink. Chloe had to step over the other arm to get into the room.

"Jesus Christ," Chloe said.

"It's something isn't it?" Ella poked her head out from where she was crouching out of sight, on the other side of the fridge. "Hey, Chloe."

Chloe didn't answer. Just stared around the room. She noticed glass on the kitchen bench. The window bars were bent inwards like they had been melted and sculpted away from the window. The window curtains fluttered in the light breeze. The curtains had once been white.

They weren't anymore.

"You'll get used to it eventually," Ella said. She motioned with her gloved hand around the room. "It just kind of blends into the scenery after a while. You know, like when you buy a nice painting and hang it on your wall, and you notice it for the first couple of weeks, and you're like 'oh that's a nice painting' but after another month or so, you don't notice it anymore."

Chloe shook her head. "No, it's not really like that."

Ella paused, looked around the room, and her eyes seemed to go dark for a second. "No, not really."

"What kind of person could have done this?" Chloe said.

Ella shook her head. "Definitely not a person. I've never seen anything like this before. It looks like some sort of animal attack, but the bite marks we've managed to see… it would have to have huge jaws, and really, really large teeth. Like a mix between a sabre-tooth tiger and an elephant."

Chloe paused. She glanced around the room. "Was… anything eaten?"

"What?"

"Are any of her organs missing?" Chloe asked.

"No," Ella said, looking at each organ in question. "Everything's here."

"What kind of animal doesn't eat its victim?" Chloe asked.

Ella shrugged. "The whole thing is pretty strange… like how it broke into one house on the street, ripped a woman to death, and then managed to go out the same way it came in without anyone seeing it."

"The window…" Chloe tip-toed closer to the window, stepping over body parts, and things she didn't want to look at. It was as if someone had twisted the window grating apart as simply as a paperclip.

She looked behind her at Ella, who was bent over. Chloe noticed her necklace swinging out from her neck. It was the shape of a sickle moon. Ella stood up, tucking the necklace away. She walked up to Chloe. Chloe could smell Ella's perfume mixing with the smell of blood, and swallowed down before she gagged. She knew if she started feeling sick, she wouldn't stop until her whole stomach had been emptied.

Ella pointed at the window bars. "Look at the corners, how they're twisted. It's like a child bent them apart like play-dough."

"An animal was meant to have done this?"

"Yeah. I don't know. But hey," Ella punched Chloe lightly on her shoulder. "Knowing's your job."

Ella looked behind Chloe at the door, and Chloe turned too. There was no one there. "Where's Lucifer?" Ella asked.

"Said he couldn't work tonight, he wants to manage his club."

Ella looked at the decapitated head of Ellen Holland lying in the kitchen sink. "Lucky him," she said.

Ω

A group thronged outside the club, smoking, and leaning against the building. Large golden letters stood out incandescent on the side of the building: LUX. Young, attractive men and women, coked-up and half-drunk, shouted, and shuffled, and laughed within the confines of the roped off queue, heads bobbing like a choppy sea.

The street in front of the club was busy. A pair of police officers patrolled outside, stoic and stone-faced to what was happening around them. Capooche saw a woman throwing up onto the sidewalk. A group of friends staggered on the pavement, suddenly moving right to dodge the vomit, looking like a drunk puppeteer had lifted them up and moved them sideways. They collided with another group. They both started posturing, shouting insults at each other, wild-eyed, looking for a fight.

The police officers came in to intervene, and one boy was handcuffed, and led to the back of the parked police van, while both parties took the time out to laugh and jeer at him.

His leg had started aching as soon as he had started walking, after the policewoman had helped him up. So he had settled on the closest place he could get a drink, and found this. It wasn't really his scene, he conceded, as the girl from earlier threw up again onto the shoes of one of her friends. But as long as it served alcohol, it would do.

Capooche leaned on his cane, and waited in the line. The place was popular. He had already been waiting for ten minutes.

When he reached the front of the line, the bouncer looked him up and down and started laughing.

"Yo, yo, Jimmy, come and get a look at this." The bouncer waved over one of his friends who had been standing next to the line, smoking. "Grandpa's night out!" The bouncer said.

Jimmy laughed. Cigarette smoke blew into Capooche's face.

Capooche sighed. "At least I don't get carded anymore," he said.

The bouncer laughed. "True that. You have a good night, sir." He unhooked the rope in front of Capooche, and beckoned at the next person in line. Capooche limped forward.

Behind him, the bouncer's friend muttered something Capooche couldn't hear, and him and the bouncer both dissolved into laughter.

"Grandpa my ass," Capooche muttered.

He stepped into the club and entered a whole different world.

The club smelled like sweat and sex. It pulsed with energy. People grinded and spun and laughed. It was mood-lit, with soft blue and white lighting. Capooche saw people making their way out of the writhing dance-group off to the edges, sweat glowing on bared skin.

The women's dresses were expensive, he could see flashes of gold watches, and he nearly had to blink from the lights shining off all the sparkling jewellery. For a second he thought he saw gauzy wings coming out of the back of one woman, but he blinked and they were gone, some figment of his imagination. The woman smiled and winked at him, probably thinking he had been checking her out. Capooche looked down, scratched at his stubbled face, suddenly aware of his appearance in comparison to the people around him. At least he was wearing a suit. He looked down at his blazer. He picked a piece of lint off the arm and flicked it away. He could remember buying it what must be twenty years ago

He pushed his way through the crowd up to the bar, pushed himself up onto a seat and leant his cane next to him.

He turned his neck from the bar, looking behind him. There were two levels to the club, but from outside, the building had looked taller. Maybe there was a third, private level?

"Whiskey. Double-shot," Martin Capooche said to the bartender.

"What kind of whiskey?" The young bartender spoke loudly over the music. Capooche wriggled on the bar-stool, trying to get comfortable. His cane fell from where he had leant it against the bar, clattering onto the floor. He cursed, but left it there for the meantime.

"The cheap kind that will get me drunk."

The bartender nodded, and Capooche could see him imagining what could happen later–having to call the bouncer on the rowdy drunk old man, raving about immigrants and the good old days. Capooche snorted.

The whiskey poured out in a golden arc into the glass. Capooche raised it to the bartender in thanks, who nodded cautiously. Capooche took a sip and grimaced.

It tasted cheap. But it would get him drunk. He took another sip.

A few people stood on the second level, behind a railing. Capooche noticed a young woman (a girl, really) with a plunging neckline. He looked away to the left, embarrassed. His gaze landed on a man, leaning down on the railing, surveying the whole club. The lights slid across his suit. It was expensive. He wore it well. The man was stubbled, the kind of stubble that only looked good with a chiselled jaw, on a younger man. Capooche could remember a time when he could have pulled it off.

Their eyes met. His eyes were dark.

The man raised a tumbler of something. Capooche raised his own glass in response, and took another sip. When he looked back up, the man was already looking away. He turned sideways, sidling up to the woman Capooche had seen earlier.

He opened with something that made her laugh.

Capooche chuckled into his drink, and shook his head. He wished the man luck.

For a moment he reminisced on his younger days. Chasing girls, drinking too much, driving five hours away with a group of friends to jump off cliffs, and light large fires on the cliff tops, hanging up their clothes on sticks to dry.

He tipped the rest of the whiskey back, and set the glass carefully down. It was a different time back then.

Capooche looked for the bartender, trying to flag him for another drink, but the bartender was busy chatting up a group of young women to the left of him, large arms rested on the bar, leaning forward with intent. Capooche saw him glance down one of the girl's tops.

Capooche trailed his fingers across the oiled, shining wooden bar-top. Something Capooche had noticed was that there was no metal he could see in the club. It was mostly dark wood, some black matte substance, and glittering glass.

It was quite classy, he admitted.

Perhaps the strangest accoutrement he could see was the grand piano sitting alone in the centre of the room. A few couches were scattered around, facing in. Capooche didn't know of many clubs that played much live music. He wondered if it was jazz. He liked jazz.

Capooche swept his hand across the dark grains of the wooden bar top. What had he been thinking, moving to a place like L.A.? He had nothing here. Nothing. He took another drink.

In the corner of his eye he noticed a movement in the air like the heat ripples you see above the road or metal roofs. The ripple shook and then fell apart and now standing there was a tall, slender well-dressed man wearing a purple coat and knee-high leather boots. Capooche shook his head. What was that? He looked down at his drink. Was he already drunk? Had he been spiked? No, it was just a trick of the lighting. Capooche looked up again and the man was looking at him. There was something about that look that made him shiver. Then the man was walking over to him and faster than he thought (how could he move that fast?) the man was in front of him.

"You can see me," the man said. "Why can you see me?" He spoke in a strange accent, a little British, a little American, and something else that Capooche didn't recognise. It was a strange mix.

"What do you mean?" Capooche asked. He brought his hand lower to his belt just in case, but no, of course the gun wasn't there. What were you going to do anyway, Marty? he thought. Shoot him right here in the middle of the club? He wasn't thinking straight.

"What are you?" The man stepped closer to Capooche. His cheekbones were sharp and defined. The lights slid off him, casting one side of his face in shadow. He had the most beautiful face of a man or woman Capooche had seen.

"Me. I'm myself," Capooche said, chuckling nervously. What did the man want? "Can I buy you a drink or something?"

The man didn't answer him; gave no indication of having heard him. He leant in closer. Wait was he sniffing? Was the man sniffing him?

"Human," he said. "How can that be? What human in this century is skilled enough to see through glamour?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Capooche said.

The man looked him in the eyes. His eyes were violet. Coloured contacts? They had to be contacts, right? Capooche had never known anyone with eye colour as vibrant as that.

"No, I don't believe you do."

The strange man looked up behind him. Capooche followed his gaze up to the man in the suit Capooche had noticed earlier. The strange man raised two fingers in a salute and the man in the suit started down the stairs.

The man in the suit strode up to them, face like a thundercloud. Capooche leaned back in his chair.

"What are you doing here?" the man in the suit said. He had a British accent and a _presence_ that Capooche couldn't explain. He felt a tingling on the back of his neck and his palms. It was like the man in the suit had a magnet that was pulling all of Capooche's being toward him. It was disconcerting.

The man in the suit motioned to the bartender who immediately poured him a glass of something. The man in the suit paused with his drink nearly to his mouth before he brought it back down again. "Would you like a drink?" he asked.

The tall man smiled, and shook his head. The man in the suit shrugged and downed the drink in one go, then brought the glass down onto the table.

"Hello, Sammael," the tall man said, holding out his hand. "It's been a long time."

The man in the suit's jaw clenched. He didn't accept the handshake.

"It's Lucifer, now, as you well know." He motioned with one hand (his rings flashed brightly) like he was sweeping something foul away from him. "I've put my past behind me. I'm a new person. Not that you would know anything about that, ***********."

His words ended with a sound that rung deeply in Capooche's ears. He winced and grabbed his head. It was high and piercing, like a needle in his brain. Like he'd taken a sip of something too cold or too hot and his bran was freezing and burning at the same time.

"Call me Thistle," the tall man glanced at Capooche. "It's easier for… everyone on this plane. You've been here long enough that you should know that."

"What do you want?" The man –Lucifer asked. What kind of name was Lucifer anyway? Were his parents Satan worshippers? Crazy people? Capooche felt bad for eavesdropping, but they were talking right there, beside him. What else was he meant to do?

"I need your protection," Thistle said.

Lucifer laughed, and took a long drink. "What on earth would _you_ need protection from?"

"Hellhounds."

Lucifer jolted. "Impossible. They're barred from earth."

"Not anymore."

"Then…"

"It's collapsing."

"What is?"

"You know what."

The two men paused. Lucifer pulled at his shirt cuffs. He was nervous, Capooche thought.

"Let's take this discussion upstairs," Thistle said gently and laid his hand on Lucifer's shoulder.

Lucifer grabbed Thistle's wrist in a blur of motion. His teeth were gritted. When Capooche looked up into his eyes they seemed to glow with a terrible light. He found himself trembling. "No," Lucifer snarled. "I will not go back begging to my father for his forgiveness or his help like a naughty child!"

Everyone around him paused. The bartender looked up from where he was pouring drinks, a woman nearby stopped dancing and back away. The club was held in suspension like everything was made of water.

Thistle smiled. "I meant upstairs, upstairs." He motioned toward the balcony with his free hand, and the water fell down and Capooche breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh," Lucifer said. "Well. Yes, of course." He let go of the other man's wrist. "After you." He beckoned Thistle in front of him.

Capooche watched them walk away. Well that had been interesting, he thought. And as he stood up, and slipped the last note in his wallet under his glass, he found himself strangely relieved that the men were walking away and that he would never had to see either of them again.

The tall man stopped and looked over his shoulder. "You too, mortal," he said.

"What?" Lucifer asked. "What's he for? A late-night refreshment?"

"I'm the wrong species," the man said. "Trust me on this. He could prove useful."

Capooche stood there paused, listening to the men talk about him and felt like a crack in the sidewalk. So he snatched up his cane while they were still arguing and walked up to them without limping at all.

"So," he said brightly. "What now?"

Ω

A/N: I started writing this fic because I am disappointed in the direction the show has taken. I wanted _Lucifer_ to dive headlong into the supernatural and fantasy instead of being just another crime procedural comedy.

Updates will be sporadic but large. If you enjoyed this chapter, please leave a review and tell me what you liked! If you didn't enjoy this chapter, please leave a review and tell me what I can improve on.

~WCW

13


	2. Chapter 2

_A mind not to be changed by place or time._

 _The mind is its own place, and in itself_

 _can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n._

–John Milton, _Paradise Lost_ , 253–255

Ω

 **Two: Dandelion Wine**

 _Chloe struggles with the crime. Lucifer comes to terms with the collapse of Hell. Capooche learns the truth. Thistle proposes a plan._

Ω

"Is there anyone you know that might have wanted to harm your mother?" Chloe asked. Martha Holland had finally stopped crying. She wrapped herself further into the shock blanket like it was a magic poncho that could make her disappear.

"No," Martha said dully. Her cheeks were ruddy and pale. Some women could cry and remain beautiful. Martha was not one of them. "No one. Everyone loved her. She was just a nice old woman. I don't understand. I don't…" Martha trailed off and stared into the distance. That poor girl.

Chloe didn't understand either. She thanked Martha for her time, tapped her notebook against her leg, and left Martha to travel home with a police officer and grieve by herself. There was a foul taste in her mouth. The sky was lightening on the horizon. Was it really that early? She was tired. Exhausted. The latening night had scared off most of the people who had wanted their little piece of excitement. Only the most committed remained: three fat women wanting their little harmless taste of crime. It was amazing how many people showed their jaws at a little drop of blood in the water.

"You leaving, Decker?" Jim said. He was one of the two police officers who would wait out the rest of the morning to guard the crime scene.

Chloe nodded. "I don't think there's anything left here that won't be here tomorrow. I'm exhausted. Good luck." Jim smiled and nodded. He was an affable man. A good cop, if a little too trusting.

She ducked under the police tape. When she stood up, the three women were in front of her. They were dressed in shawls and scarves like they were an advertisement for middle-age.

"What's going on?" One of the women asked. She had a nasally voice.

"Sorry, I can't disclose anything about a crime scene," Chloe said. She felt the beginnings of a headache in her temple. She rubbed at it distractedly and walked to her car. The women walked with her.

"Has someone died?" The same woman asked. The other ladies nodded their heads eagerly in agreement like they were bobble-headed dolls. Images of the inside of the house flashed in front of Chloe. Blood congealing on the floor. An arm looking plastic, skin old and sagging. Ellen's head, mouth frozen open. These women thought they wanted to know about it all so they could gossip about it to their friends in their kitchen, living room, doctor's office. Chloe knew their types. They knew nothing. They disgusted her. No, not disgusted. She was too tired for disgusted. It just made her sad.

"Sorry, ladies," Chloe said. "Knitting club is on Tuesdays." The women made aggrieved noises.

"I beg your pardon," one said.

And then Chloe wasn't listening. She walked quickly to her car, shoes silent on the pavement. The inside of the car was quiet. The only noise the rush in her head that she pushed away. The car smelled like leather. Right, Chloe thought. Compartmentalise. She rested her head against the steering wheel, leather cool against her forehead. OK. She checked her watch. 1am. Right. OK. Everything was OK. The case was fine-she'd work on it later. Home now.

Her car thrummed to life and she peeled away from the small house on the corner, waved to Jim, reminded herself not to swerve to hit the three women, and then she was driving home, yellow street lights pinwheeling off her windshield.

When she arrived home, she rolled her car into the driveway, turned her key in the door gently, and unlatched it slowly, tiptoed into the dark. She would shower in the morning. Eat in the morning too. She didn't think she could stomach food right now. She put her wallet and keys on the kitchen bench, the soft jangle echoing in her ears.

Trixie's bedroom light turned on.

Fuck.

"Mummy?"

"Right here, little monkey." Chloe walked into Trixie's room. Trixie was standing in the doorway, rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands.

"You have ears like a bat." Chloe turned off the nightlight and hugged Trixie, pulling her close and inhaled the scent of her. Trixie smelled like strawberry shampoo and mint. Chloe rubbed Trixie's back in circles through her pyjamas, then picked her up and put her back into bed, tucking the sheets around her,

"Did you catch any bad people today?" Trixie asked innocently, her words slurred with tiredness.

Chloe stopped rubbing Trixie's back. Trixie wiggled impatiently. Chloe stroked her hair and Trixie relaxed.

"Not today," Chloe said softly.

"That's OK. You can get them tomorrow."

"Thank you, little monkey." But Trixie didn't answer–she was already asleep.

Ω

Lucifer poured himself a drink. Collapsing. It was collapsing. Why was Hell collapsing? He took the bottle with him.

Thistle was relaxing on the couch, he looked up when Lucifer came back with the bottle. He sniffed. "Is that… dandelion wine?"

Lucifer sighed. "Glasses are over there." Thistle leapt to his feet. The human blinked at the speed and grace of Thistle's movement. A small smile wormed its way onto Thistle's face. Fae, Lucifer thought, always showing off.

"Drink?" Thistle asked the human who was still standing despite his injured leg.

The human paused then nodded. "Please."

Thistle came back. With the wrong glasses. Lucifer rolled his eyes. "No, no, no! We will not be drinking wine out of whiskey tumblers! Hell may be collapsing but that doesn't mean we have to be barbarians." Lucifer stood up, grabbed the glasses from Thistle's hand and went to get the proper glasses himself.

"So…" the human said in the following silence. "Hell… Euphemism, or...?"

"The nine circles," Thistle said. "Centre of all things. Where the guilty are damned."

"So... Lucifer…"

"The devil," Thistle said. "Beelzebub. The fallen angel, Sammael. Ruler of Hell. Satan. Etcetera. I'm sure you've heard of him..."

Lucifer turned around and shot Thistle a glare at hearing his former name, but the fae wasn't watching. Of _course_ he wasn't watching. He picked out the glasses from behind the bar, holding them softly by the stems, bottom down like he was European and they were glass tulips.

"I'm surprised the devil is such a nice guy," the human said. "Martin Capooche," he added, holding out his hand as Lucifer returned with the proper glasses. "Pleased to meet you.

"Well, you don't know me yet," Lucifer said. Capooche chuckled and Lucifer grinned. He shook Capooche's hand, making sure to be gentle. Glass and bone were just as breakable to him. It was easy sometimes, especially with another planar being in the room with him, to forget how… fragile humans were.

Lucifer handed out the glasses. Thistle poured himself a sip, sniffed it, then dipped a slender finger into it and flicked the wine away over his shoulder. "This offering I give to you," he said reverently, then licked his finger.

"I forgot how damned strange you are."

"Well you are an expert on the damned."

"How's the wine?"

"Nearly as good as it is at home," Thistle said, pouring himself a much larger glass.

"Really?" Lucifer said.

"No." The fae laughed. "Not even close. But it does remind me of home, the women and their pointed ears and pointed smiles, the lush greenery and fragrant flowers..."

"Well, now you're talking," Lucifer smirked. "Why did it have to be you and not a lovely, curved whip of a fae girl, with large eyes and…" he trailed off at the dangerous look in Thistle's eye. "Don't be so uptight," Lucifer said. "I know how antsy some of you get about interspecies… bonding."

"I am fine with that," Thistle said. "We are all God's creatures are we not? Everything's already _quite_ incestuous."

Lucifer grunted. "You know more than most that some are more than others." He wanted to rip off that self-satisfied quirk of the fae's lips.

"So you're the devil," Capooche said, looking up to gesture at Lucifer while he poured himself a drink. "What are you?" He directed the second part to Thistle. "A.. fae?" The foreign word was pronounced wrongly, the sound bumbling out of his mouth.

"The fair folk," Lucifer said. "You know, faeries."

Thistle put his feet up on Lucifer's coffee-table. "Do not use the term faerie, I warn you three times, human. I do not take offense, but others will. Wag your tongue carefully around my kin if you wish to keep it."

"Well, surely there are different types of fae," Capooche said. "Which are you?" Lucifer raised his eyebrows. The human was quick.

"A member of the Sidhe," Lucifer said. "The ruling fae class of the Seelie, the Summer Court." Thistle looked uncomfortable in his seat and Lucifer grinned. "We will not speak of the Unseelie."

"So, you're royalty?" Capooche asked.

"A prince, actually," Lucifer said, enjoying watching Thistle squirm. "Eighth in line to the Bramble Throne. " Thistle looked up at that, frowning. Lucifer was surprised. "Oh, sixth then. Fifth? _Fourth? Really?_ "

"The millennia since I saw you last has not been kind on my people," Thistle said softly. "And now even less. The fae realm is collapsing, being sucked into Hell's implosion." The fae wore a sad expression.

Lucifer sat down next to him, pushing Thistle's feet off the coffee table.

"But why is it collapsing? Hell has been left without a ruler before." Lucifer said.

"Well, you're welcome to go down there and have a look around," Thistle said. "When you do not come back I can have LUX and your suits, yes? They may be a little… wide for me but I am sure I can work something out."

Lucifer growled softly in the back of his throat. He'd forgotten how much impudence the fae had. Still, at least they were never boring.

"There must be something you can do," the human interjected, also taking a seat on the couch. "You wouldn't be here otherwise."

Thistle shook his head. "There is nothing to be done about the disintegration of my world." For a moment there was an intense expression of pain and loss, eyes wet and full. Thistle rubbed at his neck with a knuckle, and then he moved on: 'I'm here to… smooth things over between the transfer of my world's population to this one."

"You want to rule earth?" Capooche stood up, knuckles white against the cane and face reddened with anger. "Wipe out our population? Make it your playground?"

Thistle's eyes flashed green, whole body tensed. "Settle down, mortal. You are only here at my behest."

"And you're both here at mine," Lucifer growled. "Behave yourselves. You don't want war, do you, Thistle?"

"No."

"Why not?" Capooche said. "I saw you turn invisible. You could wipe out the humans like they were rodents."

"What's the point of turning invisible when others can see you?" Lucifer said.

"Yes, you saw me," Thistle said impatiently. "And I'm still… intrigued how you did that. But we could not wipe you out, human. We would lose a war."

"Why?" Capooche asked, frowning.

"Cold iron," Lucifer leaned back in his chair and grinned widely at Thistle, teeth glittering dangerously. "Earth is filled with it. The fae have an… adverse aversion to it."

"So why do you want to live here then?"

"Pick one: extinction or discomfort," Thistle said.

"Surely there are other…" Capooche waved a hand, searching for the right word. "Worlds that are like Earth, that aren't collapsing."

"There are," Thistle said. "But we are barred from Heaven. And the others…"

"They are not an option," Lucifer said.

"But–"

"They are _not_ an option," Thistle repeated Lucifer's words. "For reasons you do not wish to know, mortal."

"So you want to co-exist."

"Yes. Already there are a large number of planar beings living on your planet."

"Planar?"

"There are seven planes," Thistle explained. "Earth is of the first. Humans are not able see past the first–well most of you cannot." Thistle raised his glass and glanced up and down Capooche, appraising him. "You appear to be able to."

"There are other supernatural beings on Earth." From the human it sounded more like resignation than a question. Capooche took a long swig of the dandelion wine. "I should have known," Capooche mumbled, "no, I did know." He didn't speak quietly enough to not be heard by either Lucifer or Thistle.

The conversation lulled.

"The Hellhound you escaped from…" Lucifer prompted.

"Hellhound _s_ ," Thistle stressed the plural.

"More than one?" Lucifer asked, surprised. The fae had mentioned the Hellhounds before, but Lucifer had just assumed Thistle had only faced one. Hellhounds were notorious for not only their killing capabilities, but their tracking as well. "How'd you get away?"

"I have my tricks," Thistle said, but didn't offer anything more. Lucifer raised his eyebrows. Impressive. Thistle was more–a lot more–capable than Lucifer had previously thought. He would have to keep an eye on him.

"What enemies do you have?" Lucifer asked.

"Many," Thistle said. "As you well know, the court of the fae do not play nicely. I have been… quite avid about our expatriation." Thistle sneered, face all at once transformed from the sharp beauty into something scary the lamplight. "There are… traditionalists who would rather die than adapt, including the queen and her consort and all their accoutrement."

"Any who have access to Hellhounds?"

"Yesterday I only thought you and your proxy in Hell had access to those beasts."

Right. His proxy. Lucifer grabbed the bottle of wine.

"What aren't you telling me, Lucifer?" Thistle said. Of course he had noticed. Damned fae. "Come on-"

"There is no proxy."

"You mean you just…"

"Left? Yes. _Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return_." That was Da Vinci. The artists had always been good at summarising emotion. "If you know nothing else, know that Hell is a cage," Lucifer spat out the words with venom, he could feel the devil-face bleeding through and pushed it back deep inside. "I was just another prisoner, but with an iron crown and fiery whip for chains."

"Lucifer…" Thistle spoke his name and Lucifer thought Thistle understood. Lucifer has never met a fae who didn't revel in freedom. He'd visited the Seelie Court once, chasing a few escaped souls who'd managed to slip between worlds. He was only there for a few days but Lucifer could remember the twisting, verdurous gloom and bright bursting flowers that whispered their alien glow. And there had been sinuous fae with sharp teeth and hair of all colours. They wore strings of flowers and hairy moss and gauzy silks that seemed to hiss as they moved and bones of animals that clinked together in the fragrant wind, pealing bright like bells. Or they wore nothing at all, skin of all shades dappling and shifting under the soft-padding moonlight. And there had been dancing, and feasting and fruit of a thousand colours and flavours, and clear liquids that poets could only dream of. And there had been flesh and bodies and glistening sweat and... Even now, Lucifer couldn't remember all the details: everything was soft-edged and hazy, like he'd been drugged. Yes, if anyone could understand it was one of the fae. But Thistle shook his head and Lucifer's heart sank. "I thought you were more responsible than that," Thistle said.

"You thought I, the angel who rebelled, who tempted Eve, was _responsible_?"

"I see your point," Thistle laughed. The sound was high and grating. Inhuman. On the other side of the couch, Capooche shuddered. "So, anyone could be in control of your hellhounds."

"Anyone strong enough to enter Hell, wrest control without being murdered by demons, and control the hounds without the hounds turning on them instead."

"So we have a problem."

Lucifer took another sip of wine. It tasted foul. He forced himself to swallow. "Yes," he said. "We have a problem."

Ω

Capooche's head reeled. Angels. Fae. Hell. Hellhounds… the actual devil. What was his world coming to? He wondered if he was still lying in that hospital bed, deep in a coma, and all this was his dream. But he doubted he had the imagination to dream up something like this anyway.

There had always been the thought in the back of his mind that there was something more: that the normal, boring mundane had to have another hidden facet, the world some kind of funhouse contraption with shadows gliding just out of sight behind the glittering, lying mirrors. When he'd been shot, that had really confirmed it though. That voice in the light telling him to turn back, to go back down to the aching body- _his_ aching body-and the cold, grey world and all of its shouting imperfections.

Lucifer and Thistle had turned silent. Capooche couldn't tell if they were thinking, or just waiting for the other to speak. Lucifer tipped back the rest of the wine, shook the empty bottle, set it back down on the table, a small droplet winking at the light as it dropped from the rim down the neck.

The whiskey Capooche had drunk mixed with the wine in the pit of his stomach (still bright and sweet in his mouth), and he remembered he hadn't eaten yet. Maybe that was why he felt so light-headed. Thistle shifted in his chair and Capooche found himself studying the supple knee-high leather boots with white buckles. They shimmered like heat off a tin sheet. Capooche frowned, he must've drunk more than he'd thought. For a second…

"We need to kill them," Thistle said, making Capooche look up at him. "I covered my tracks here, but they've got my scent. They'll find me eventually."

"They wouldn't dare to snatch you up from beneath me," Lucifer said.

Thistle frowned and stood up, pacing slowly around the room as if he were picking his way through strewn glass."I can't stay caged up in here forever," he said. Lucifer laughed at that for some reason. Thistle picked up a bowl from a table, placed it back down. "I came here to do a job that must be done."

"Maybe you should leave it for another time."

"It must be soon. You know that. You _must_ -"

Lucifer cut off Thistle with a sharp motion of his hand. His words were low and dangerous: "I don't have to do anything."

"If you do not, then you will be committing genocide."

"Everyone and everything who can, already thinks the worst of me, that I am evil."

Thistle snorted. "Anyone who thinks you are evil is a babe or blind. Anyone wise sees you as you are: an impudent child, raging at his father, tiny fists beating uselessly at his breast."

"Enough!" Lucifer shouted like a peal of thunder. In a blur of movement he slapped the now empty chair Thistle had been sitting in before. The chair flung across the room and smashed into the opposite wall, crumbling to pieces and cracking the wall's facade. "You dare speak to me of impudence?" Lucifer stepped up into Thistle's face, body tensed, fists clenched. His eyes glowed with a terrible fire.

Capooche's heart thumped, his pulse leaping in his throat. Sweat trickled down his back. He glanced toward the door but it was blocked by the two figures. The wreckage of the chair seemed to pulse with symbolism. What would happen to a human body?

With a small shrug, white wings snapped up from behind Lucifer's back, powerful and corded with muscle. The long feathers shone softly with light. That same light Capooche had seen while in hospital. He grabbed Thistle by the coat and sneered up into his face.

"You with a dying race," Lucifer's voice was soft and low and blunt and Capooche shivered. "You, a dying breed. I have made Michael bleed. The Messiah himself was needed to combat me. We warred together for 3 days and 3 nights. I knocked the crown of thorns from his head, before he eventually bested me with Michael at his side. Do not test me, Prince of Fae, for I shall brush you away like dust. You will be spread to the corners of all that is by Zephyr, and the wind's moans shall echo your own."

Thistle stared up into Lucifer's eyes, at the hands on his coat and the glowing wings, and he laughed, clapping his hands together with glee like a child. "I had heard you burned them! Oh, maybe there is a chance after all."

For a moment it looked as if Lucifer would throw Thistle like the chair. Shadows played out on his face, working off his chiselled jaw, pooling in his eyes: twin pits of night. Then he turned back and sat back down and the wings were gone and so was the scourge of Heaven, and in his place was a tall, affable, good looking man who was the owner of a popular club in Los Angeles. His voice was bitter: "There are some things fire and heat cannot melt, not for lack of trying."

The room felt dimmer without the presence of the wings. More than that, everything seemed _less_. For a moment Capooche had been in the presence of something beautiful and divine and now everything was hidden again; the lamp was shuttered; the world was cold and dark and lonely. He wiped the tears from his eyes.

Ω

Chloe's phone woke her. The ringtone had reached down and plucked her from her dream where she'd been running down an endless beach in her wedding dress with Dan chasing her, and now she was lying on her back in the darkness, utterly and completely alone, mouth dry and raspy, limbs heavy like they were filled with sleep.

She rolled over to reach the bedside table, but got caught in the blankets and had to wrestle out of them. Sighing, she turned on the lamp. The small clock ticked another minute. 4:18am. Great.

The phone sat heavy in her hand. The call was from Rose, her boss. For a second she wondered what would happen if she let it ring out, turned it off, and went back to sleep. She answered it. "Decker."

"Sorry to wake you, Decker," Rose's voice was tired and gravelly. Chloe could almost smell the caffeine on her breath through the phone. "But fuck. There's been another one."

"Another…"

"It happened an hour or so ago. Looks to be the same cause of death, same bite marks. We'll have to wait for forensics, but it looks like it could be a spree."

Chloe's heart thudded, her fingers tingled. She rubbed at her temple, already feeling a headache sprouting.

"Where?"

Rose told her the address.

"OK, give me twenty minutes or so. I need a bite to eat."

"Skip the food. Trust me, Chloe. If you thought that last one was bad…"

Rose never used her first name. She must be really rattled. Chloe hopped out of bed, stretched, and shimmied into a clean pair of jeans.

"I'll be fifteen or so." She swiped her hair back from her face, searched the bedside table for something to tie it back. Her empty stomach rolled on itself and grumbled. She felt sick.

"Hurry. And bring Lucifer, if he's awake. There were more witnesses this time. Maybe he'll be able to wrangle something out of them."

Ω

Thistle smiled and tried not to show that he was shaken. He'd baited Lucifer on purpose, trying to find out his power: if the rumour of his burned wings was true. And maybe even more, just because he was _curious_ : where would Lucifer draw the line? What would Thistle have to say to anger him, what spark would catch the tinder to make it burn and burn and burn? He'd been a fool. A damned fool.

But sometimes even fools get lucky, and he thanked the stars and stone for his fortune. Not only had he learned of Lucifer's power, but he did not have to die to do so. He'd felt the fallen's strength when he had gripped his coat. For a moment he'd also gripped Thistle's wrist, and it still ached. It would bruise certainly. But still Thistle hid all this, under a carefully composed mask. He'd learned how to hide things well, how to lie inside other lies, how to twist the fabric of the world slightly, just enough for the pattern to appear differently and so the threads never led back to him. He was, after all, above all else, a politician.

"Another drink?" Lucifer asked.

"No thanks," the human replied immediately. "I don't know what the hell your bodies are made of, but I'm a bit woozy."

"Alcohol barely has an effect on my people," Thistle said. "Your alcohol anyway. We brew ours in barrels of oak and yew and elm, fermenting various flora, some your world does not have. Sometimes for a kick we will add in moon or starlight. Strong stuff."

"How the fuck do you drink moonlight?" The human asked.

Thistle blinked and frowned, genuinely confused by the question. "The same way you drink water." For beings who were so blunt and literal, they had some strange thoughts about some things.

"I…"

Lucifer leaped to his feet and hurried over to the bar impatiently. "Elderberry, blackberry, mead or aniseed?"

"None for me, thank you. I am afraid it will just make me more homesick."

"Suit yourself." Lucifer busied himself behind the bar. "I don't remember drinking starlight," he said, "while I stayed with you. Maybe that's because I only stayed for a week. A shame I'll never get to experience it longer."

Thistle burst out laughing, curbed it down into a cough when he remembered who he was laughing at. "A week? I forget the effect the fae realm has on other beings, some fae too. You were with us for many moons. Six at least. We were worried we would never get you to leave. Some never do. The more lost you are, the more lost you get in the fae realm."

A look of intense sadness flitted across Lucifer's face, then left as quickly as it arrived. "Well," he said brightly, "what's six months to an immortal being anyway?"

Thistle nodded. He glanced around the room, noting the silk curtains and large glittering windows, every surface polished and shiny. He never understood the fascination with building things. Erecting roofs which cut off the sight of the sky. Everything in the universe decayed. You could build something with strong, stable foundations, placing stone on stone or metal on metal, you could take care to find and build the right materials, join them together perfectly with time-won precision and care, and still, eventually chaos would reach out its dark maw and take a bite of it like a naive woman biting an apple. What a waste of resources, of time, energy, life. This planet especially hadn't aged itself properly: like wood stacked incorrectly, moisture had gotten in, everything was rotting. For all they tried, nothing was standing how they had intended.

"We need to talk seriously about my people and what we are to do."

Lucifer paused while making his drink. "How are you even going to travel everyone here? If Hell is collapsing the Golden Bridge will go down with it, and I don't know of anyone who could open a large enough portal."

"The Bridge has already shattered-another world destroyed it, worried about inter-planar refugees. No, the only way is through the Ways now. Or like you said, in small groups through portals. That's partly why I came. Most of our kind capable of Travel already fled to your world after their pleas were ignored and the first coup failed."

"Coup?"

"I would not even call it that." Thistle wrinkled his nose and tried not to think of the wasteful bloodshed, of the burning forests, of the sky filled with smoke so the stars could not be seen. Of his lover, lying in the river shallows, arrow piercing his neck. "It was a massacre. What a shame. It will go down in my peoples' history as a useless folly, a useless murder. I... I did nothing to help it."

"Which side were you on?" the human asked.

Thistle looked down, clenched his jaw.

Lucifer's phone rang. Checking the caller ID, he answered it immediately. "Hello, detective. Ooh, doesn't that sound like fun? Yep, I'll be there ASAP." He hung up. "Looks like you're working through some things, Thistle. If you need a therapist I know a good one. Alas, I'm needed elsewhere."

Thistle stood, irritated and angry. "Where are you going? We have not finished talking."

"Someone else needs me. And we are for now. Do not leave this room. I'm putting this task in your hands, Martin. If the fae tries to leave or tries to eat you, stab him with this." Lucifer handed the human a sharp, slim object. Thistle gritted his teeth, he could smell the cold iron from here.

The human pocketed the object awkwardly. "Well, I'll do my best."

"This is the safest place for you. We can talk when I return. I'll figure out a way to solve this hellhound mess. There isn't too much of a rush after all. Call me before you break anything." Thistle watched in confusion as they pulled out two rectangular shiny blocks, and then rattled numerals off to each other with no explanation. "If you see a hellhound... well, you two only need to be able to run faster than the other one."

Thistle and the human eyed each other up. The elevator dinged. Lucifer stepped in. The doors closed, and then he was gone.

Why had he let him leave like that? He hadn't received the answer he needed. He hadn't done a good enough job. He had just doomed his entire race to extinction.

The human stood and stretched. "Well, isn't he something?"

Thistle grunted.

"You know, I'm not going to stab you."

"You would not be able to even if you tried."

Nervously the human glanced Thistle up and down. "You won't actually try and eat me will you?" he asked.

Thistle bared his teeth. "It depends how hungry I get."

The human's nervous laughter trailed off when Thistle didn't join in.

"I am sorry about what is happening to you and your people. I'll do what I can to help you. I'm sure everything will turn out OK."

Thistle nodded his head at the empathetic gaze of the old man. His throat was thick. "Thank you," he said.

Unable to breathe any longer in the small room, and angry at his failure to convince Lucifer for his unabided help, Thistle walked over to the balcony, slid open the door, and stepped out. The sun was just rising and the city spread out before him like a corpse, mist coiling off the towers like a sinuous serpent. The air was muggy and limping, and as Thistle stood there it began to rain, slowly at first, then pouring, sheeting down, bouncing off the pavement like silver coins, snaking downwards on the glass, beads colliding with each other to drop out of view; everything worked together to build up a drum-drumming rhythm that expanded and bloomed until it was one continuous noise.

His clothes plastered to himself, Thistle allowed himself a true smile. He had always loved the rain. All was not lost. He was not dead; Lucifer had not yet denied his aid.

He spread his arms and almost gasped at the coolness. The coursing water on his skin washed every thought away, and in that moment he wasn't worried about the future, about the hellhounds chasing him and who sent them, about his people, or his own life… there was only him and the rain. And he stared up unblinking and watched as the sky fell around him.


End file.
